2. On-farm sustainable agriculture research: lessons from the past, directions for the future.

J. of Sustainable Agriculture, 1, (2), 1991, pp. 43-87

The unique roles of on-farm research in assisting with the development of sustainable agriculture are outlined in this article.

On-farm research, as used in this article, pertains to scientifically-designed investigations undertaken on the field of commercial farmers. The research may pertain to only some or all crop and livestock enterprises on particular farms. On-farm research is intended to be distinct from on-farm demonstrations in which improved technologies developed on-station are tried out on farmers' fields.

Demonstrations usually do not involve formal replications or other required features for the statistical analysis of data collected.

In detail the following aspects are dealt with in this paper:

- Systems nature of sustainable farming- Strategies to effectively address issues in sustainable agriculture- Unique roles of on-farm research in assisting the development of sustainable agriculture- Documenting existing sustainable practices and experiences- Experimenting with new sustainable practices/enterprises- Issues for consideration in the next generation of on-farm research- Comparative tests of sustainable and conventional farms- Partnership among university specialists, private organizations, and farmers in the design and conduct of on-farm research.

Applied to sustainable agriculture, on-farm research can be used for

- documenting the sustainable practices and experiences of commercial sustainable farmers and- experimenting with new sustainable practices/enterprises on the fields of commercial farmers.

The systems nature of sustainable agriculture requires the strategic use of:

- multidisciplinary research teams;- whole-farm, holistic analasis;- long-term research programs- and "synthetic" as well as analytic approaches.